Articles

Allie was having a rough night. She had already been disciplined once for slapping one of the pastor’s sons across the face, and she had just done it again, this time to his brother. Her mother was humiliated and frustrated. …Read More

As a pastor, I am often faced with the difficulty of counseling deeply saddened fathers and mothers with prodigal sons and daughters. Parents who enter my study for counsel and prayer are usually trying to come to grips with the …Read More

Being a pastor’s kid (PK) is the only life I know. I was born one, and though I am no longer a child, I am still a PK. The greatest advantages and blessings in my life are products or bi-products …Read More

How well do you communicate? Most of us will answer in light of our ability to present our thoughts and ideas in cogent ways. But I would suggest that the finest art of communication in our family life is not …Read More

My dad was fifty-two years old when I was born. When I was thirteen, he asked me if I was embarrassed that he was so much older than my friends’ dads. I told him I wasn’t embarrassed but that I …Read More

Bernard of Clairvaux, the twelfth-century doctor of the church who penned the hymn “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” opens his devotional classic On Loving God with the following words: “You wish for me to tell you why and how God …Read More

It is not hard to complain about the government’s schools. The government, at least during every election cycle, seems less than satisfied with its own product, ever promising us that it will improve. Atheists complain about prayers before football games. …Read More

Tabletalk: What inspired you to write Disability and the Gospel? Michael Beates: Some thirty years ago, with the birth of our first child, Jessica, my wife and I began a long journey with disability. Seeking answers and some assurance of …Read More

Early in our married life, my wife, Donna, spent two years working as a pediatric nurse at a large children’s hospital. Her unit regularly saw young patients who were in desperate need of medical care, sometimes extreme medical care. One …Read More

The Sermon on the Mount is tough to swallow all at once. Though what we have recorded for us in Matthew 5–7 is significantly shorter than the sermons most of us are used to, it is on the other hand …Read More